A $36.8 billion lesson from Georgia- “The most expensive electricity in the world”
In May, the plaintiffs along with four other prominent Georgia consumer groups released a report, Plant Vogtle: The True Cost of Nuclear Power in the United States. The analysis detailed how the U.S. Department of Energy, Georgia Power, and the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC), conspired to force Georgians into purchasing the most expensive electricity in the world, costing ratepayers $10,784 per kilowatt, compared to $900 to $1,500 per kilowatt (KW) for wind or solar. Recent Georgia Power electricity bills have shown the bill increase to be in the 30-40% range.
Again and again, the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) was warned about the astronomical cost of the Vogtle reactors and the financial toll it will bear on Georgians for decades to come.
Ratepayers beware. New nuclear power plants will gouge customers
From Georgia Conservation Voters Education Fund and Georgia WAND
Georgia consumer groups have filed a major lawsuit against the State of Georgia [AF1] in federal court, alleging Georgia lawmakers violated the state’s constitution by unilaterally postponing Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) elections. According to the lawsuit, the PSC election’s unlawful postponement allowed the sitting commission members to rubberstamp the largest utility rate increases in Georgia history and grant utility companies the authority to charge Georgians for cost-overruns and mishaps. The groups argue that the charges may not have been passed onto consumers if elections were held as regularly scheduled.
House Bill 1312, which Georgia legislators passed in April, delays the election of new PSC members until at least 2025, giving multiple sitting PSC members an extra two years in office. Georgia’s constitution requires that PSC terms shall be six years, and therefore cannot be lengthened without a constitutional amendment. All PSC members have had their office terms extended to eight years, and one nine years as a result.
…………………………………….Brionté McCorkle, plaintiff and executive director of Georgia Conservation Voters Education Fund, said: “Georgians are fighting every month to stay ahead of rising costs for food, housing, and now energy. These aren’t optional costs. They’re things we need to survive. Public Service Commissioners like Tricia Pridemore, Fitz Johnson, and Tim Echols have allowed Georgia Power to take money out of the pockets of hard-working Georgians – and it has to end.”
In May, the plaintiffs along with four other prominent Georgia consumer groups released a report, Plant Vogtle: The True Cost of Nuclear Power in the United States. The analysis detailed how the U.S. Department of Energy, Georgia Power, and the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC), conspired to force Georgians into purchasing the most expensive electricity in the world, costing ratepayers $10,784 per kilowatt, compared to $900 to $1,500 per kilowatt (KW) for wind or solar. Recent Georgia Power electricity bills have shown the bill increase to be in the 30-40% range.
Additional Key findings in the May Vogtle report included:
- Plant Vogtle allowed Georgia Power to expand its rate base, the assets on which they earn a guaranteed rate of return, by over $11 billion. Yet their share of Vogtle is 1,020 megawatts, making it the most expensive electricity in the world at $10,784/KW. Normal (wind, solar, natural gas) generation prices range from $900 to $1500/KW.
- Vogtle Units 3 & 4 took 15 years to build and cost $36.8 billion, well over twice the projected timeline and cost.
- Vogtle independent construction monitors documented that Georgia Power provided materially false cost estimates for at least ten years, falsehoods used to justify expanding Plant Vogtle. Similar false cost estimates sent South Carolina utility executives to jail for that state’s failed nuclear plant, which started construction at the same time as Plant Vogtle.
Patty Durand, consumer advocate, founder of Cool Planet Solutions and a recent candidate for the Georgia PSC, said:
“Again and again, the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) was warned about the astronomical cost of the Vogtle reactors and the financial toll it will bear on Georgians for decades to come. Commissioners repeatedly declined to protect ratepayers from cost overruns and ignored PSC staff recommendations to cancel the project. People went to prison for actions like this in South Carolina, yet we have had no accountability for the same, and worse, behavior here. Instead, the state legislature decided to shield current commissioners from facing voters by delaying PSC elections indefinitely. This is clearly unconstitutional. This is un-American.” https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2024/07/28/a-36-8-billion-lesson-from-georgia/
French nuclear giant ORANO slips into the red following Niger-French breakup
French nuclear giant Orano ended the first half of the year with a loss of €133 million, weighed down by difficulties in its mining activities in Niger due to a “highly degraded” political context since a military regime came to power a year ago.
Radio Free Europe: 29/07/2024 –
At the end of June 2024, the group noted “the deteriorated situation affecting mining operations in Niger,” Orano’s chief financial officer, David Claverie, said in a statement.
The coup d’état in Niger on 26 July last year led to a halt in imports of critical materials necessary for uranium exploitation in Orano’s Somaïr mine, such as soda ash, carbonate, nitrates and sulphur.
And although uranium extraction continued in the first quarter of 2024 “after several months of early maintenance,” Somaïr’s sales were unable to resume “due to a lack of logistics solutions approved by the Niger authorities”.
The blockage led the mine into “financial difficulty … weighing on its ability to continue its operations”, the statement read.
In late June, Niger decided to withdraw the licence of Imouraren SA, a company jointly operated by Orano, Niger Mining and Korea Electric Power, and which ran the Somaïr mine.
The situation could eventually lead to “insolvency in the short to medium term, in the coming months”, Claverie said……………………………… https://www.rfi.fr/en/international/20240729-french-nuclear-giant-slips-into-the-red-following-niger-french-breakup
EDF looks towards future projects after flagging tough second half
French energy giant EDF aims to meet its schedule for future nuclear
reactor projects, its CEO said on Friday, with final tests ahead of the
start-up of its newest French reactor imminent after years of delays. The
group earlier reported a jump in first-half profit on higher electricity
production, but said regional market prices had fallen and warned core
earnings in the second half would decline year-on-year.
In Britain, EDF is continuing talks with the newly elected Labour government over its Hinkley
Point C and Sizewell C nuclear projects, Remont told reporters, adding it
is “a bit early” to give a date for a final investment decision on
Sizewell.
Reuters 26th July 2024
Spain: Nuclear Industry Reels After Tax Increase
Energy Intelligence Group, Fri, Jul 26, 2024, Author, Grace Symes, London, Editor, Phil Chaffee
Spain’s nuclear operators are warning that last month’s move by Madrid to significantly raise a tax on these utilities may undermine the commercial viability of Spain’s seven operating reactors, even as they approach a government-mandated nuclear phaseout by 2035.
\The 30% tax rise is meant partly to cover the costs of seven separate interim nuclear waste storage facilities for spent fuel and high-level waste, a strategy mandated after the government discarded plans for a controversial single centralized facility. Owners argue they had no say in the storage decision, and should not be required to pay the significant added costs it will entail…………… (Subscribers only) https://www.energyintel.com/00000190-bb7f-db32-ad93-bb7ff87a0000
‘ Regulated Asset Base’ system mulled in Japan to add nuke plant construction costs to rates
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN, by Chinami Tajika and Aki Fukuyama. July 24, 2024, https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15359689
The Finance Ministry is considering introducing a system that would allow construction costs of new nuclear power plants to be added to electricity rates, which could be passed onto consumers.
By doing so, the ministry aims to promote the construction of new nuclear plants.
Electric power companies are reluctant to invest in nuclear plants because the cost of safety measures is ballooning due to the 2011 disaster in Fukushima, and they no longer have the means to ensure recouping construction costs.
The central government has said that it will increase decarbonized power sources to prepare for future increases in demand, but that could lead to a major increase in the burden on the public.
According to sources, the “RAB model,” a nuclear plant support measure devised in Britain, will be used as a reference.
When construction of a nuclear plant is approved by the government, the construction and maintenance costs are borne by the retail electricity company once construction has begun. The cost will be recovered through a hike in electricity rates.
Under the model, any increase in construction costs can be included in the fee if the cost is deemed necessary. If the project is suspended, the government will compensate by providing funds.
If the system is introduced directly to Japan, it will be up to retail companies, including new power companies, to decide whether to pass the charge directly to customers.
However, even those who opt for a 100 percent renewable electricity supply may pay for the construction of a nuclear power plant.
In the past, there was a mechanism to ensure that the construction costs of power plants and transmission and distribution networks could be recovered by factoring them into electricity prices.
But with the deregulation of the electric power industry that began in 2000, this system was gradually eliminated, and power plants that were not cost-effective were closed and investment in new power plants was suppressed.
Elon Musk attends Netanyahu’s congressional address as his guest
A day after activating Starlink internet in Gaza, Tesla CEO appears at Israeli PM’s controversial joint session
Nick Robins-Early, Thu 25 Jul 2024
Elon Musk attended Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress on Wednesday as a guest of the embattled Israeli prime minister.
A day earlier, the tech billionaire announced that his Starlink internet service was now active in a Gaza hospital, with the support of Israel’s government.
Netanyahu’s congressional visit was met with thousands of protesters gathering near Capitol Hill to demonstrate against Israeli abuses during its war in Gaza. Lawmakers were divided over whether he should have been invited to speak.
Musk has a history of courting rightwing leaders in countries that have overlapping business interests with his various enterprises. He previously hosted Javier Millei, Argentina’s president, at his Tesla factory and has been a cheerleader for his policies, while also cozying up to Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, and Jair Bolsonaro, the former Brazilian president.
Musk previously met with Netanyahu during a visit to Israel last year, as the tech leader sought to quell accusations of antisemitism after personally endorsing a post on his social network X, formerly Twitter, that claimed Jews hate white people. Far-right content on the platform has also increased.
Musk’s visit also appears to have helped pave the way for SpaceX to provide its Starlink satellite internet to Gaza, which he announced on Tuesday was now in service at a hospital. The single location, which was supported by Israel and the United Arab Emirates, also reflects the tight controls that Israel has put on communications technology in the area.
In recent weeks, Musk has also thrown his support behind Donald Trump’s election campaign and played a direct role in advising the former president to select JD Vance, Ohio senator, as his running mate.
Although Musk has continued to post conservative content and attacks against the presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, he appears to have tempered some of his support for Trump following Joe Biden dropping out of the race. Musk pushed back against a report he was set to donate $45m per month to a pro-Trump political action committee.
Musk’s appearance as a guest of Netanyahu further aligns him with the Republican party line, which has thrown its support behind the Israeli leader as many Democrats condemn his actions. A number of progressive Democratic lawmakers declined to attend Netanyahu’s speech, with New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez denouncing him as a “war criminal.
A New Brunswick reaction to the exorbitant costs of Point Lepreau nuclear power station.
When the Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station was refurbished over three years and re-opened in 2012, NB Power did not complete a number of associated repairs, despite the lengthy time and high cost of the refurbishment.
As a result, the nuclear plant has experienced many problems since the refurbishment and has been performing poorly. Since 2023, the NB nuclear plant has been managed by Ontario Power Generation, three managers costing $2 Million per year, under a three-year contract. I’m unsure if these people actually live in New Brunswick and pay taxes here or if New Brunswick is sending the money directly to Ontario.
At the start of April, the Lepreau nuclear plant was shut down for a scheduled 100 days to do the associated upgrades/repairs that NB Power hopes will improve the performance. The cost of the repairs was estimated at more than $300 million including the replacement power for this year’s repairs and another scheduled repair session in 2025. The first repairs were scheduled to end last week but instead of starting up again, the engineers noted a major problem with the main generator. Note that most of these engineers and workers doing this scheduled upgrade / repair are from Ontario, so it’s unclear how much of this cash is staying in the province.
Today we learned that the repair to the generator will cost an extra $70 million and the plant is down at least till September, which they say is a best case scenario.
So, when all this is over, what can New Brunswickers expect? At the end of the story below is this kicker: “Even by 2030, NB Power still thinks the plant will be mired in the basement, performance wise.”
What a F*** disaster. It’s absolutely nuts that our small province with a population of only 800,000 people has a nuclear reactor. In addition to the nuclear waste and other problems the reactor creates, we can’t afford it and we do not have the capacity in-province to look after it!
Point Lepreau nuclear station down till at least September, costing utility extra $71M.
All of this has been costly for the utility, which now carries more than $5 billion in debt, and to ratepayers, who are being asked to swallow the biggest increases to their bills in their lifetimes.
New target is a ‘best-case scenario,’ said expert of 27 years, who added it ‘wouldn’t be appropriate’ to give a worst-case scenario.
Telegraph Journal, John Chilibeck, Jul 22, 2024
The prolonged shutdown at the Point Lepreau nuclear plant is raising alarm, including over how it could affect power bills for residents and businesses.
At a rate hearing in Fredericton on Monday, NB Power officials said the longer-than-expected shutdown would likely last until at least September and cost an extra $71 million. That includes $51 million for buying replacement power and about $20 million for added repair and equipment costs.
Craig Church, a chief modeler for the public utility, said it would cost on average an extra $900,000 for each day Lepreau is shuttered given it is one of the cheapest in NB Power’s fleet of generators to run.
It normally provides one-third of the province’s electricity.
“The loss will have to be made up by future ratepayers?” asked public intervenor Allain Chiasson at the hearing.
After a pregnant pause, Church replied yes.
NB Power is already seeking the biggest hike in electrical bills in a lifetime. If the New Brunswick Energy and Utilities Board, an independent regulator, grants its request, households will have to pay 9.8 per cent more this year and 9.8 per cent more next year.
According to NB Power’s evidence, the average electrically heated residential customer is billed about $3,087 annually. Adding 9.8 per cent to that bill would be another $303, or a total of $3,390.
Big industry is facing a similar percentage hike, whereas small and medium-sized businesses would face slightly smaller increases.
But the evidence before the board does not take into account the prolonged shutdown of Lepreau, meaning those extra costs will only come into play in future years.
NB Power undertook a 100-day outage of Lepreau, west of Saint John along the Fundy coast, from mid-April to mid-July to overhaul parts of the non-nuclear side of the plant at a cost of $124 million.
It was part of a planned shutdown to renew the plant and make sure it was robust enough for the winter, when it supplies baseload power for the province. According to the plan, the upgrades were supposed to be completed last week.
But on Monday, an expert on the NB Power panel, Jason Nouwens, the director of regulatory and external affairs at Lepreau, said on June 29, the team discovered a problem with the main generator on the non-nuclear side of the plant.
Specifically, one of 144 stator bars in a giant rotor had failed, but NB Power isn’t sure why. To get to the failed equipment, workers must painstakingly take apart the generator piece by piece, a job that will take at least two weeks.
Then, Nouwens said, the troubleshooting team that includes outside experts from the Canadian nuclear industry will try to figure out why the stator bar broke and possible remedies to prevent such a failure from happening again.
The expert, who has been working at Lepreau 27 years, said the plant coming back online in September was a best-case scenario. When asked by one of the interveners, Nouwens said it “wouldn’t be appropriate” to give a worst-case scenario.
Besides the extra costs caused by the delayed re-start, questions have been raised about possible spillover.
On Friday at the same hearings at the Fredericton Convention Centre, a lawyer working on behalf of J.D. Irving, Limited asked NB Power officials repeatedly how the longer-than-expected outage at the nuclear generator would affect other important power plants in the electrical system.
The lawyer Glenn Zacher had before him Phil Landry, NB Power’s executive director of project management offices, who answered questions about other power plants in the system.
The other plants are also supposed to undergo regular outages for maintenance and repairs to ensure they are safe and reliable.
But some of the maintenance work has already been delayed because those plants need to be running when Lepreau is down, otherwise people’s lights and air conditioners wouldn’t work.
“When is it too late to do undertake maintenance elsewhere?” asked Zacher. “It seems to be an important question to be answered.”
Landry, however, didn’t have any firm answers and struggled to give any specific timelines, given the uncertainty at Lepreau
Landry explained to the board that NB Power has been running the Belledune Generating Station – which belches out emissions from high-polluting coal – and Coleson Cove, which burns similarly polluting heavy oil, to replace the energy lost at Lepreau.
Belledune was supposed to undergo maintenance and repairs right now, at a cost of $17.1 million, but its 46-day outage has been indefinitely delayed………………………………….
Pushing out the maintenance to later in the year, closer to the winter months, is not an ideal scenario, Landry said, because they need to be running smoothly when people heat their homes and electrical demand is greatest.
NB Power refurbished the nuclear side of the plant in 2012, at a cost of $2.5 billion, a project that was over-budget by $1 billion and took 37 months longer to complete than expected. But NB Power didn’t do similar work to other important parts of the plant, leading to frequent breakdowns.
All of this has been costly for the utility, which now carries more than $5 billion in debt, and to ratepayers, who are being asked to swallow the biggest increases to their bills in their lifetimes.
NB Power CEO Lori Clark has promised Lepreau will no longer be neglected in the hopes of improving its performance. The utility has partnered with Ontario Power Generation, which has more expertise with nuclear plants, to ensure the next phase of the overhaul is done right.
A benchmarking study showed Lepreau is one of the worst performers out of 38 similar nuclear power plants in the world, consistently in the bottom quarter.
On Monday, Nouwens said NB Power was committed to improving the plant’s performance but cautioned it would take years of extra spending and repair work to get to the average performance of most nuclear plants. He pointed out that Lepreau has 115,000 different components, many of which have to be replaced or repaired with age.
Even by 2030, NB Power still thinks the plant will be mired in the basement, performance wise.
“In the past, the work hasn’t been comprehensive and intrusive enough to reach the performance we need,” the executive said. “We’ve under-invested, causing unreliability.” https://tj.news/new-brunswick/long-shutdown-of-nuclear-plant-would-have-knock-on-effect-warns-lawyer
NATO/US Complicity in Israel’s Relentless Genocide of Gaza
Only 4 of 32 NATO Members do NOT Sell Weapons to Israel or Buy Weapons from Israel
Israel has been the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign aid since its founding in 1948, having received about $310 BILLION dollars in economic and military assistance. Since October 7, 2023, the U.S. has passed legislation that has provided at least $12.5 billion in military aid to Israel, which included $3.8 billion from legislation in March 2024 and $8.7 billion from a supplemental appropriation in April 2024.
Biden says U.S. should not have “Killing Fields,” while he is complicit in the Israeli “Killing Fields” in Gaza.
ANN WRIGHT, JUL 17, 2024, LA Progressive
As Israel continued its relentless genocide on steroids of Palestinians in Gaza with over 140 killed in the past weekend, imprisonment without charges of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank and destruction of the hospitals, universities, schools (8 UNRWA schools bombed in the past 10 days), cultural centers and indiscriminate bombing of markets, soccer fields and “safe area” residents of Gaza have been forced into, an assassination attempt was made on former President Trump and NATO finished its gala 75th Anniversary celebrations in Washington, DC.
Biden Says “U.S. Politics Should Never Be A Killing Field,” While He is complicit in the Israeli “Killing Fields” in Gaza
As the genocide continued and a few days after the end of the NATO celebrations, an assassination attempt on former President Trump caused President Biden to address the nation and orate that “political violence has no place in America and U.S. politics should never be a killing field.”
The statement of no political violence and no killing fields in America rings totally hollow as the Biden administration and NATO countries fuel the Israeli killing fields in Gaza with over 90 Palestinians killed and 300 wounded by multiple Israeli rocket attacks in Khan Yunis on Saturday, July 12, and 80 Palestinians killed in the past 24 hours of July 13 in several refugee camps.
NATO members fuel the Genocide of Gaza by Selling/Sending Weapons to Israel
Heads of 32 NATO member states and 10 NATO “global partners”, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Colombia, Mongolia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, met in Washington, DC at the 75th Anniversary events of NATO.
Some of the NATO members and partners are the same countries that are aiding and abetting the Israeli genocide of Gaza.
An Office for the State of Israel Located in the NATO Headquarters
NATO has a long, close and relatively unknown relationship with Israel that, eight years ago, resulted in establishment of an Israeli office in NATO headquarters in Brussels in 2016. Underscoring the importance to Israeli association with NATO, Prime Minister Netanyahu said upon the opening of the office, “This is an important step that helps Israel’s security. It is further proof to the status of Israel and the willingness of many organizations to cooperate with us in the field of security.”
The invitation from NATO for Israel to have an office in NATO headquarters was a result of pressure by other NATO members on Turkey to drop its veto of the invitation. The invitation arose through a new NATO partnership policy beginning in 2014 but Turkey vetoed the invitation until 2016.
Behind the scenes negotiations between Turkey and Israel in 2015 warmed the chilly relationship that had been essentially severed between the countries in 2010 over Israeli commandos killing 10 Turkish activists and wounding over 50 participants on the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish ship bound for Gaza as a part of the 7-ship Gaza Freedom Flotilla.
According to NATO documents, NATO and Israel have worked together for almost 30 years, cooperating in science and technology, counter terrorism, civil preparedness, countering weapons of mass destruction and women, peace and security. To strengthen NATO naval interoperability NATO brought on Israel as a partner for NATO’s Operation Sea Guardian. Israel’s military medical academy now serves as a “unique asset” for NATO’s Partnership Training and Education Centers community.
Israel is not officially integrated in NATO but is part of the Mediterranean Dialogue, a program sponsored by NATO in cooperation with seven countries of the Mediterranean.
Only 4 of 32 NATO Members do NOT Sell Weapons to Israel or Buy Weapons from Israel
NATO’s long-standing working relationship with Israel has translated into NATO countries selling weapons to Israel and other countries buying weapons from Israel’s big weapons industry.
With the exception of Canada, the Netherlands, Spain and Belgium, the remainder of the 32 NATO members continue to sell/send weapons to Israel as Israel conducts genocide operations on Palestinians in Gaza. Due to a court case, Denmark may suspend export of F-35 fighter jet parts to the U.S., because the U.S. sells the jets to Israel.
Even Latvia sold weapons to Israel, while Lithuania bought weapons from Israel. Greece, Albania, Slovakia, and many other NATO countries have purchased military equipment from Israel.
The Action on Armed Violence has a comprehensive worldwide listing of weapons sales and transfers to Israel.
The US is the mammoth supplier to Israel, providing an estimated 68% of Israel’s foreign-sourced weapons.
Israel has been the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign aid since its founding in 1948, having received about $310 BILLION dollars in economic and military assistance. Since October 7, 2023, the U.S. has passed legislation that has provided at least $12.5 billion in military aid to Israel, which included $3.8 billion from legislation in March 2024 and $8.7 billion from a supplemental appropriation in April 2024.
Since October 7, only two of the more than one hundred military aid transfers to Israel have reportedly met the congressional review threshold of $250 million to be made public, and since the records for the other weapons transfers have not been made public, we can’t be sure . Additionally, the Israeli military received expedited deliveries of weapons from a strategic stockpile of weapons that is normally used to replenishment weapons for U.S. units in the Middle East. The U.S. has maintained massive warehouses for the stockpile of huge variety and amount of weapons since the 1980s…………………. https://www.laprogressive.com/foreign-policy/relentless-genocide—
France’s EDF faces fresh setback after losing Czech nuclear bid
French state power giant EDF lost a bid to build at least two new nuclear
reactors in the Czech Republic on Wednesday, a major blow to Europe’s only
nuclear power plant builder at a critical time for the company. The
project, won instead by Korea’s KHNP, would have been the first contract
for EDF since Hinkley Point in Great Britain in 2016, and a vote of
confidence after being dogged by delays and soaring costs on projects at
home and abroad.
Reuters 17th July 2024
EDF pulls out of competition to build mini-nuclear reactors in Britain
Sat, 13th July 2024, https://www.lse.co.uk/news/edf-pulls-out-of-competition-to-build-mini-nuclear-reactors-in-britain-yipcxoiuz1s67eu.html
Alliance News) – Paris-based energy firm EDF has withdrawn from a competition to construct mini-nuclear reactors in Britain, the company said on Tuesday.
EDF was one of six firms shortlisted in October last year for government support to deliver a new wave of nuclear reactors to provide cheaper and cleaner energy.
Two designs for small modular reactors (SMRs) from those submitted by GE-Hitachi, Holtec Britain, NuScale Power Corp, Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC and Westinghouse Electric Corp will be chosen by the end of the year.
The Conservative government which lost last week’s general election set up the competition as part of its aim to derive up to a quarter of all UK electricity from nuclear power by mid-century…………..
Labour, which won the election, has promised to extend the lifetime of existing nuclear plants, including the much-delayed and over-budget Hinkley Point C in southwest England.
EDF said in January that project could be delayed by four years, and cost as much as GBP8 billion more than planned.
It had been due to become operational in June 2027 but that has now been pushed back to between 2029 and 2031, it added.
Labour also made developing SMRs part of its election pitch to the country, saying nuclear would help Britain achieve energy security and its aims of decarbonising the power grid by 2030.
source: AFP
Analyst Says Nuclear Industry Is ‘Totally Irrelevant’ in the Market for New Power Capacity
Power, Jul 8, 2024, by Aaron Larson
“…………………………………………….. Mycle Schneider, an independent international analyst on energy and nuclear policy, and coordinator, editor, and publisher of the annual WNISR, said, “in [new] capacity terms, the nuclear industry, from what is going on, on the ground, is totally irrelevant.”
Schneider was speaking as a guest on The POWER Podcast and prefaced his statement by comparing nuclear power additions to solar power additions in recent years. “Let’s look at China, because China is the only country that has been massively building nuclear power plants over the past 20 years,” he said.
“China connected one reactor to the grid in 2023—one gigawatt. In the same year, they connected, and the numbers vary, but over 200 gigawatts of solar alone. Solar power generates more electricity in China than nuclear power since 2022. And, of course, wind power generates more than nuclear power in China for a decade already,” Schneider said. Furthermore, he noted, the disparity has gone “completely unnoticed by the general public or even within the energy professionals that are in Europe or often also in North America.”
Schneider said the media often gives the impression that the nuclear industry is booming, but the facts suggest otherwise. “Over the past 20 years—2004 to 2023—104 reactors were closed down and 102 started up,” Schneider said. “But here is important that almost half, 49 of those new reactors started, were in China [where none closed], so the balance outside China is minus 51.”
Some nuclear advocates might suggest that things are changing. They might argue that small modular reactors (SMRs) or other advanced designs are poised to reinvigorate the industry. But Schneider disagrees. He noted that since the construction start of the second unit at Hinkley Point C in the UK in 2019—almost five years ago—there have been 35 nuclear project construction starts in the world. Twenty-two of those were in China and the other 13 were all implemented by the Russian nuclear industry in a few different countries. “Nothing else. Not an SMR here or an SMR there, or a large reactor here or a large reactor there by any other player,” reported Schneider.
Meanwhile, history has shown that the nuclear industry struggles to meet timeline targets. As examples, Schneider noted that on Jan. 1, 2022, 16 reactors were scheduled to come online during the following year. Only seven actually did. In 2023, nine were planned to come online, but only five made it to the grid. This demonstrates how bad the industry is at scheduling—it can’t even predict project completion at a high rate of accuracy during the final year of construction. “How precise could it possibly be if there are predictions for 2030, 2035, 2040, for reactors that don’t even have a [design] license yet?” asked Schneider.
Notably, timelines haven’t always improved on later units. Schneider said the EPR units have demonstrated a “negative learning curve.” Specifically, the first EPR units to enter commercial operation were at the Taishan site in China, which came online in 2018 and 2019. They had a shorter construction time than Olkiluoto 3 in Finland, which started construction about four years prior to Taishan but didn’t enter commercial operation until 2023. Flamanville 3 in France began construction in 2007 and hasn’t yet entered commercial operation. It could end up having a construction period even longer than Olkiluoto 3. To cap it all off, Schneider said the Hinkley Point C EPR units could be even longer than Flamanville 3.
“By the way, you can also show that through the building history of nuclear reactors in France—it’s actually a negative learning curve,” said Schneider. Furthermore, with so few reactors being constructed, learnings are limited.
Schneider noted that the vast majority of new capacity being added to the grid is from solar and wind energy. “These guys are building tens of thousands of wind turbines, and literally hundreds of millions of solar cells, so the learning effect is just absolutely stunning,” he said. “On the nuclear side, we’re talking about a handful. That’s very difficult. Very, very difficult—very challenging—to have a learning effect with so few units.”
Schneider said the nuclear discussion in general needs a “really thorough reality check.” He suggested the possibilities and feasibilities must be investigated. “Then, choices can be made on a solid basis,” he said.
To hear the full interview with Schneider, which contains more about the WNISR, what’s behind construction delays, how delays affect budgets, SMRs and why modular construction methods may not solve problems, and much more, listen to The POWER Podcast. Click on the SoundCloud player below to listen in your browser now or use the following links [listed on original] to reach the show page on your favorite podcast platform – https://www.powermag.com/analyst-says-nuclear-industry-is-totally-irrelevant-in-the-market-for-new-power-capacity/
New Brunswick’s nuclear-powered rate hikes
Commentary, by Janice Harvey, July 8, 2024, https://nbmediacoop.org/2024/07/08/new-brunswicks-nuclear-powered-rate-hikes/
The abject failure of this and previous governments’ energy policies is on full display these days. In the 1970s, New Brunswick was one of only three provinces that bought into the federal government’s agenda to build out a civilian nuclear power industry. Quebec has since shut its nuclear generators down, leaving only Ontario and New Brunswick as the nuclear flag-bearers. How has that worked out for us?
NB Power has come to the Energy and Utilities Board (EUB) with a request for the biggest rate hikes in the utility’s history. While the details are buried in thousands of pages of documents filed with the EUB, evidence from previous EUB hearings makes it crystal clear that the utility’s single greatest financial liability driving up power rates is the much-vaunted Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station.
Point Lepreau has been a financial white elephant since its construction ended up costing three times the original price tag. Its planned 30-year lifespan (over which all this extra cost was to be amortized) was cut short by premature aging of critical reactor components, prompting a decision to undergo an expensive refurbishment, which was to extend the life of the plant by a fantastical 40 years. At the time, the then-PUB determined based on the evidence that refurbishment was too big a financial risk for New Brunswickers to handle and recommended against it. The Lord government went ahead anyway.
Like the original construction, the refurbishment went way over the timeline and budget. The result has been very poor performance, a miserable 60 per cent in 2022 compared to the wildly optimistic 90 per cent capacity assumption that the EUB rejected. The costs of replacement power alone during these shutdowns have repeatedly sabotaged annual financial performance projections. Now, Point Lepreau is facing even more expensive upgrades to fix problems that were not dealt with during the refurbishment.
In short, Point Lepreau is the most unreliable and most expensive power generator on the grid, responsible for the lion’s share of NB Power’s debt. It is not going to get any better. Keeping it afloat until 2040, its new end-of-life target, is going to mean more of the same – throwing scarce money down a deep, black hole paid for by ever-rising power rates.
Despite the overwhelming evidence that New Brunswickers cannot afford nuclear power, the Higgs government has doubled down on nuclear, floating an equally fantastical proposition that the next generation of nukes – so-called small modular reactors – will quarterback New Brunswick’s climate change strategy, while an SMR export industry is expected to drive economic growth. To that end, New Brunswick taxpayers have already fronted a total of $35 million to two private nuclear upstarts, neither of which has designed or built a reactor. This is despite lots of reasons to put their rosy promises of “clean” nuclear-fueled prosperity in the same wishful thinking category as JOI Scientific’s power-from-water scheme that so beguiled NB Power executives.
Just as the EUB rate hearings got underway, an entirely predictable hitch in the Higgs’ nuclear dream occurred. It seems like the SMR upstart ARC Clean Energy is on its way down and out, taking $25 million provincial dollars and $7 million federal with it. If we’re lucky, Moltex Energy, propped up by $10 million in provincial and $50.5 million in federal tax dollars, will be close behind, and we can breathe a sigh of financial relief. The longer this nonsense persists, the more of our tax dollars will go into the nuclear black hole, and the greater the delay in meeting our climate change pollution targets.
Even if Moltex hangs on, or some other SMR promoter replaces them, any electricity that might eventually flow from an SMR will be, like Point Lepreau, the most expensive power on the grid – entirely unaffordable and unnecessary. The Higgs government knows this, passing legislation this spring requiring NB Power to buy electricity from the planned privately-owned SMRs regardless of price, a silent admission that electricity from SMRs, should they ever see the light of day, will be more expensive than any alternative. In other words, SMRs will drive up your power bill.
Meanwhile, the June 22nd issue of The Economist features the exponential growth of solar energy worldwide, the cost of which – even with storage – is falling exponentially. Other than home retrofits, this is the cheapest new power on offer.
The nuclear cost numbers are there for all to see. For elected representatives to support this industry, knowing people cannot tolerate higher power rates, is grossly irresponsible and a betrayal of trust. Renewables naysayers are depriving New Brunswickers of the benefits of this global energy transition. This – and our nuclear-powered rate hikes – need to be on the ballot on October 21.
Janice Harvey is the chair of the Environment and Society program at St. Thomas Universit
New nuclear is ‘too expensive’ for UK zero-carbon energy target.
Chairman of the Energy Transitions Commission says hydrogen or gas power
with carbon capture and storage could help to keep the lights on. New
nuclear power stations may not be needed for Britain to hit targets for net
zero because there are cheaper, low-carbon alternatives that could back up
intermittent renewable power, the head of a leading think tank has claimed.
Lord Turner of Ecchinswell, chairman of the Energy Transitions Commission,
said that while it was important to keep existing nuclear power stations
running for as long as possible, hydrogen fuel or gas power stations that
had been fitted with carbon capture and storage technology could fill the
gap when wind or solar generation was not enough to keep the lights on.
“I don’t think it is the case that you need new nuclear to balance the
system. The systems of the future don’t absolutely need a base load,”
he said. Turner, the former head of the Financial Services Authority and a
former director-general of the CBI, said future power sources “can work
on a combination of intermittent variable renewables, wind and solar plus
some hydro.
“I think the challenge for new nuclear is that it is just
expensive. Bluntly, new nuclear can play very little role in a 2030
target,” Turner said, referring to the new government’s target to
decarbonise the energy system by the end of the decade.
Times 8th July 2024
With global race to decarbonize electricity sector, demand for skilled nuclear workers heats up.
COMMENT. Most (or all?) of the funds available to these companies to hire “skilled workers” is coming directly from the public (taxpayers) through direct subsidies, contracts or tax refunds. For example, the story mentions that AtkinsRéalis is one of the top hiring firms. A few weeks back was another story stating that the AtkinsRéalis nuclear division got a $750M contract for work on a CANDU reactor in Romania. A few months before that was another story that Canada had signed a $3 BILLION “export development deal” with Romania (i.e. a gift) to build its CANDU reactor, and that most of the funds would be spent on Canadian jobs. This all comes back to the nuclear industry’s current core problem: its products (new nuclear reactors) are hulking dinosaurs that suck up funds at an alarming rate and no private investor doing due diligence wants to be part of this costly scheme.
Globe and Mail, MATTHEW MCCLEARN, 8 July 24
Last month, U.S.-based nuclear reactor vendor Westinghouse opened a 13,000-square-foot engineering office in Kitchener, Ont. The company wants to sell its products, including its flagship AP1000 reactor, in Canada while also serving international customers.
Having hired most of its 250 Canadian staff in the last three years, it now seeks to hire 100 more engineers. It’s recruiting at a moment when, after a decades-long lull, skilled nuclear workers find themselves in high demand.
China and Russia have long dominated construction activity, while Western countries stagnated; Canada’s newest power reactor was completed in the early 1990s. But efforts to decarbonize the electricity sector have coalesced into support for designing and building new reactors, even as aging facilities are overhauled – leading to a proliferation of announced nuclear projects.
Whether there’s enough engineering talent to execute them all, however, is a question vigorously debated within the nuclear industry, here and abroad.
According to a survey the Canadian Nuclear Association conducted five years ago, the industry directly employs 33,000 people – up from 30,000 in 2012. Large employers include Ontario Power Generation and Bruce Power, which operate large nuclear plants, as well as uranium mining giant Cameco Corp. and Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, which operates the Chalk River research facility.
That survey is now being updated, and while results have not been finalized, employment appears to have grown another 10 to 15 per cent during the past five years. But the sheer volume of announced projects implies more rapid growth.
OPG recently began early work to refurbish four reactors at its Pickering station. The eight-reactor Bruce station, already one of the world’s largest, is in the early stages of a planned expansion that could add four new large reactors.
AtkinsRéalis, steward of Canada’s homegrown Candu technology, is racing to develop a modernized 1,000-megawatt reactor it calls the Monark. It’s among the most active hirers on Nuclear Jobs Canada, an industry job board.
Canadian Nuclear Laboratories is hiring at its Chalk River facilities, a Second World War-era facility that has been extensively modernized in recent years. It’s looking to populate its new laboratories and replace retiring workers.
“Nuclear was a little bit quiet for a while, and now it’s coming back,” said Janet Tosh, CNL’s vice-president of human resources.
“So we are having to build up that talent pipeline. But it’s not just science and technology people we’re looking for. We’re looking for technicians, machinists, certified trade workers.”
And then there’s relative newcomers to Canada, such as Westinghouse. Another U.S.-based reactor vendor, GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy, has partnered with OPG to build up to four small modular reactors at Darlington station.
The picture is similar in other Western countries, including the U.S. and Britain, both of which have seen limited reactor construction for decades. Reports abound that nuclear employers, desperate for talent, have lured long-retired professionals back into the work force.
Last year, the U.S. National Academy of Engineering published a 250-page report examining the potential barriers to a major build-out of new “advanced” reactors. It identifies labour availability as a key constraint.
“Utilities have generally not retained the talent on their staff to execute these large projects given the limited deployment of nuclear technology in the past 30 years in the United States,” the report says.
“This shortfall in talent could become equally limiting across the supply chain, operations, and regulatory organizations that must support any large-scale growth in nuclear deployment.”
Akira Tokuhiro, a professor at Ontario Tech University, which has one of the largest nuclear engineering programs in North America, has noticed major nuclear employers pledging to hire hundreds of workers apiece on LinkedIn.
“And I thought, how can that be?” he recalled during an interview. “Because we’re producing 50 graduates a year.”
Prof. Tokuhiro added up the output from other programs across the continent, and determined that fewer than 1,000 people graduate with a degree in radiation science or nuclear engineering in North America. (He figures that for every such graduate, nuclear employers hire 10 times as many mechanical, chemical and other engineers who’ve not studied nuclear directly.)
He compares that against likely retirement rates for workers at major nuclear employers, as well as the many announced nuclear projects.
“We don’t have enough new graduates,” Prof. Tokuhiro concluded. “There’s a disconnect between what the industry needs, and what the universities are producing.”
Luca Oriani, Westinghouse’s global chief engineering services officer, disagrees. The reactor vendor almost exclusively hires graduates with little or no industry experience, he said, and then trains and retains them as long as possible, typically decades. The company has found the supply of engineering talent abundant, in Canada and elsewhere.
That’s not to say competition isn’t fierce. Westinghouse used to visit campuses a week ahead of job fairs for coming graduates to recruit before they met with competitors; now it’s offering them jobs as early as a year before graduation.
“I have over 2,000 engineers working for me,” Mr. Oriani said. “I still spend at least a week month just going to different universities and discussing with students, and trying to see how do we get them to come to us before they go somewhere else.”
In an interview earlier this year, OPG chief executive officer Ken Hartwick divided the industry’s labour into two groups: engineering and project management on one side; and trades, such as boilermakers and electricians, on the other. Availability of the first group, he said, has not been a problem, an aging work force notwithstanding.
“I’m less worried about the older person losing some of the experience, because the younger people coming through our universities are brilliant,” Mr. Hartwick said.
Tradespeople were another matter. OPG competes for them not just with other nuclear utilities such as Bruce Power, but with many other construction projects, including hospitals and roads.
“Can we ramp up our trades programs fast enough? That’s the biggest challenge.”
Some in Canada’s nuclear industry say talent isn’t as scarce here as it is in the U.S. and Britain, thanks to major multi-reactor reactor refurbishments at Ontario’s Darlington and Bruce stations over the past decade. They’re major capital projects in their own right, requiring significant manpower to execute.
That’s kept a lot of building trades very engaged, and it’s kept the regular work force [of utilities] engaged,” said Bob Walker, national director of the Canadian Nuclear Workers’ Council, an umbrella organization of nuclear sector unions.
He confirmed that retirees are re-entering the work force, but added that most nuclear employers offer generous pension plans, allowing workers to retire relatively early.
“That’s been a running joke for as long as I can remember: No one ever retires, they just change positions,” Mr. Walker said. “The industry plans on people coming back, and people plan on retiring and coming back.”……………….. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-after-decades-of-dormancy-competition-for-nuclear-engineering-talent/
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